We remember John Kountouriotis, who passed away on 1 October 2013 after a
long illness. At the time of his death, John was a doctoral student at
the Drexel Wireless Systems Laboratory (DWSL), advised by Dr. Kapil
Dandekar. He had also been working with Adant, a communication company
that develops antenna systems for wireless communications.
John Kountouriotis was born in New York City on 6 January 1979, and grew
up in Greece. He held a Bachelor of Science degree from the National
Technical University of Athens, where he was advised by Dr. Fillipos
Constantinou, and a Master of Science degree from Drexel University. His
research in the last few years focused on reconfigurable antennas for
communication networks, and on software defined radio. Among other
journals, his work was published in the IEEE Transactions on Signal
Processing and the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. His
work has attracted a large (and growing) number of citations by other
researchers – in journals, conference proceedings, and doctoral
dissertations. His reputation and influence were clearly on the ascent.
Beyond his considerable success as a researcher and author, and his
reputation as the “go to guy” among his peers on all matters related to
communication systems, antennas and radio, John was a colleague, partner
and friend. He was known as a willing and very effective mentor to
many younger students – in the DWSL and in the classes he taught. In an
award nomination letter we received about him, he was described as “a
deeply caring and kind individual. His caring and kindness are clearly
on display when he teaches a class, mentors undergraduate and graduate
students, even when he performs research. In many ways, we think of him
as the heart of our research group. I once overheard him describe our
research group as a “family” to another graduate student. This
characteristic of us being a “family” is due, in no small part, to his
presence among us.”
John is survived by his wife Yianna, and we express our heartfelt
condolences to her and the rest of his family and friends. It is our
understanding that John’s funeral will take place in Greece – a separate
announcement will be made on a memorial event in Philadelphia.